(I haven't been here for a long old while. Older, wiser, but no less opinionated.)

Doesn't time fly? Here we are again.

I actually actively dislike our entry (zzzzz) which means it will probably do well. Mind you, the Eurofans abroad seem to like our song.

If you didn't see You Decide, we've picked Lucie Jones, who's been on every random program going including The X Factor and The Sarah Jane Adventures. The song, more intriguingly, is co-written by Emmelie De Forest, the 2013 winner. But, as as been said before, the calibre of the act doesn't matter: it is a *song* contest. The song is the most important factor. Cascada were, and I would argue, still are huge, yet somehow finished below Bonnie Tyler in 2013.

Looks like we're heading back to Sweden though, Melodifestivalen's first semi final had some real gems. And we've only heard 7 of the 28 songs up for selection. They've also got Loreen in SF4 (2012 winner, you know, "Euphoooooriaaaa") and her song, "Statements", should be decent.

Whilst I'll steer away from the politics about it, purely thinking in terms of Eurovision, if you think Brexit will have an effect on the voting then I seriously think you're hiding under a rock. Of the 43 countries that have entered this year, 17, excluding the UK, aren't in the EU. The contest's top 3 last year were all non-EU countries, 5 of the last 10 editions have been won by non-EU countries, and of course, you're forgetting the fact that half of the votes now come from professional juries. Although if CeCe Sammy, the head UK juror in 2016 and one of the panellists on You Decide (the annoying one), is anything to go by... (FYI, she voted for the two heavy rock numbers last year).

I'm glad the contest under Jon Ola Sand has become more transparent since 2014 by revealing the voting results of every single juror as well as the televoting results of every country, but the changes for last year with the new voting system are not to my taste. For a start, they force a "fake" televoting result on San Marino (who, since their phone lines are Italian, cannot physically have a televote), which is unfair on San Marino if you ask me as they're not being represented properly. I dived into Excel to work out the differences in the voting system and picked up three major points when compared with the 2013-15 rules: 1) the previous system was very good at weeding out bloc votes, and large disparities between juries and televoting normally resulted in nul points from a particular country - UK in 2014 being the best example (full televoting marks went to Poland, but the juries ranked this last and thus it received 0 from the UK); 2) from a completely biased and British perspective, the old system would have given us another 4 or 5 places, thanks mostly to not diluting the Sanmarinese jury who gave us 8 points; 3) last year was the only time since 2009 (when juries were reintroduced) that this new system actually changed the winner compared to the old systems (2009-2012 used a different method of doing the 50:50 split). On a more aesthetic note, the new system is confusing to viewers. I lost count of the number of times I had to tell people that the first half was just the jury votes, particularly when Malta gave us 12.

Anyway, I think ours is one of those songs which will either be top 5 or bottom 5.